Scarsciotti, 85, who served as a high-speed radio operator in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, was demoted to private in 1945 after his captain learned he had revealed their unit's location to his father, Joseph, a Navy man. Using a code name, Scarsciotti told his father that he was stationed on the island of Sansapore, making possible a wonderful, if brief, reunion.

After retiring from a career as an engineer in the late 1980s, Scarsciotti began a two-decade quest to correct what he calls the "gross injustice" of his demotion. On Tuesday, he received the news he has been working for all these years: An Air Force letter saying he is being reinstated to his previous rank of Technician Fourth Grade.

"It was a long hard road," he says, "21 years to correct something that happened 64 years ago."

The Riverdale resident was informed of the change by Gregory Johnson, chief examiner of the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records. The letter said the board restored his sergeant's rank based on a reconsideration request Scarsciotti made last April, military records he sent, and letters from Philip Riley of the American Legion in Washington and war partner Edward Wasinlewski, according to Scarsciotti.

And, it appears, former President George W. Bush had something to do with it, too.

To truly understand Scarsciotti's quixotic journey, though, we must step back in time to the war. Born in Boston, Scarsciotti joined the Army in 1943. He worked side-by-side with Wasinlewski as a high-speed radio operator, sending and receiving Morse code messages on South Pacific islands.

Scarsciotti and his father agreed on a series of code names for the islands in case they had the chance to meet. Joseph had the Navy's approval for the practice, but Scarsciotti did not tell the Army Air Forces.

When they did reunite on Sansapore in Dutch New Guinea, "the island was just half-taken - the Japanese had half and we had half," Scarsciotti recalls. "His ship came into the harbor to drop off some fresh troops and pick up some broken ones."

The young man went aboard his father's ship, and Joseph came ashore to meet many of his son's buddies. Afterward, Scarsciotti's superior asked how his father had found him.

"Being young and stupid or whatever you want to call it, I told the truth," Scarsciotti says.

His superior told him he had committed a misdemeanor, and demoted Scarsciotti to a private first class - but kept him in the same job.

Scarsciotti was honorably discharged in 1946.

Only after his retirement did he begin working to restore his stripes. Complicating things was a 1973 fire in St. Louis that destroyed his personnel file. An Air Force board review in 2004 mentioned that fire and said that unless new evidence of misconduct by Scarsciotti's superiors came to light, the branch had no reason to think he was discharged with the wrong rank.

Through the years the Dedham man appealed to numerous U.S. senators and congressmen for help, as well as the Army, Air Force, Department of Veterans Affairs, then-President Bush, then-Gov. Mitt Romney, radio talk show hosts Howie Carr and Rush Limbaugh, and even, just last month, President Barack Obama.

But Scarsciotti is "positive" that it was yet another letter he sent to the White House around last July that set things in motion.

He says he asked Bush to see what he could do to get his stripes back as Bush left office. In August, he was contacted by the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which said their letter was in response to his inquiry to President Bush. The records center asked for more documentation, and Scarsciotti sent it.

"I really think it's about time," says Elizabeth Scarsciotti, who married Anthony in 1947. "He worked very hard and they took away something that he worked for and that he deserved. I didn't think it was fair."

Besides Wasinlewski, who just passed away, and Riley - a former resident of Dedham - Scarsciotti is grateful to Selectman James MacDonald for his help.

After 21 years of effort, MacDonald says, Scarsciotti "finally got what he deserves. It's a proud day for Anthony, because he's finally back to the rank he earned."

Besides the rank restoration, the Air Force letter says Scarsciotti's service and medical records will be corrected.

Scarsciotti says he expects to receive some money he is owed, and maybe even decorative stripes. But it's the record that matters, he says.

"My record says that I am now reinstated," he says, "and that's important to me because the day that I pass on, they give me a plaque, and on the plaque I didn't want to see private first class, I wanted to see T/4 Sgt."